I often hear that my soaps look downright edible, but I think I may have outdone myself with this decadent Chocolate and Roses Valentine Soap. It’s a beautiful dark bar with what looks like a swirl of nougat running through the center, and if you don’t want to lick it on sight, there might be something a bit wrong with you. These cold processed bars are loaded with rich cocoa butter and moisturizing olive oil, and they work up into an utterly lovely creamy lather. I’m not sure how you couldn’t be completely smitten with them, so let’s dive in.
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My desire to make these bars nice and chocolatey without pouring $15 of cocoa absolute in them led me to adding a lot of cocoa butter. I used some nice dark stuff, but creamy white cocoa butter will work as well—you’ll just need more iron oxides to get the lovely chocolately brown hue we’re shooting for. Make sure you aren’t using refined/deodorized cocoa butter for this; you want cocoa butter that makes your mouth water when you smell it. In percentages this high, some of that cocoa-y goodness will carry through to our final bars. NOM.
Thanks to all the cocoa butter we’re using we don’t need another hardening oil, either—that means these bars are vegan! I was going to add some silk but opted not to in order to keep them vegan, but you definitely could add some if you’re so inclined—silk in soap is a beautiful thing, and very fitting for Valentine’s day!
I would recommend soaping these bars a bit warmer than room temperature—especially if your home is as chilly as mine is these days. Thanks to the liberal dose of cocoa butter in these bars you’ll find the batter gets quite thick, quite fast (as you can see in the video), so if you want a smooth pour, it’s definitely in your best interest to work at a slightly warmer temperature (~38°C/110°F) so things stay a bit softer a bit longer.
The middle swirly milk-chocolatey bit is made by adding a bit of titanium dioxide to the dark brown part to create an extra creamy center that had me repeatedly reminding myself that it was not actually chocolate mousse, despite both looking and smelling like it. Sigh. I used a handy dandy Gear Tie to do the hanger swirl with. Not only are gear ties much easier to bend than coat hangers (no faffing with wire cutters and pliers, hurray!), you can get them in a bunch of different gauges, so you can use a thicker one to get more defined swirls. Highly recommended! I just popped mine in the dishwasher afterwards, too, making clean up easy-peasy.
I decorated the top with a pink mica swirl and some pretty dried rose buds. When you slice the soap be sure to come at it from the side so you don’t drag bits of dried flowers and mica through the bars (the flowers in particular can create some very sad gouges down the bar).
I left these bars to saponify uncovered and uninsulated, and after twenty four hours they were really firm—you wouldn’t want to leave them any longer! They cut beautifully—little to no knife stick, with beautifully smooth surfaces. Oooooh. Again—no licking! I know you want to, but don’t!
Anyhow, that’s about it. Let’s make some Chocolate and Roses Valentine Soap!
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Chocolate and Roses Valentine Soap
40% olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada)
30% cocoa butter (USA / Canada) (dark or light, but be sure it’s super fragrant)
25% refined coconut oil (USA / Canada)
5% castor oil (USA / Canada)Per 500g (1.1lbs) of oils:
- 15g | 0.53oz benzoin essential oil
- 10g | 0.35oz rose fragrance oil or rose essential oil
- 1.5 tbsp clay—either white white kaolin clay (USA / Canada) or your chocolatey-est coloured smooth clay
- 3/4 tsp titanium dioxide dioxide, dispersed in castor oil (USA / Canada)
For colour (as needed—pick either):
To decorate (as needed):
- Pink mica (I used Kiss Me My Darling from YellowBee)
- Dried rose buds
- Castor oil, to disperse the mica in
Calculate to a 5% superfat
Use SoapCalc to calculate your final amounts of oils, lye, and water based on the size of batch you want to make.
Follow my standard soap making instructions, letting the oils and lye water come to rest at room temperature (or a bit above, if it’s quite cold where you are).
Once your soap batter has reached trace, blend in the clay and essential oils, and cocoa powder with your immersion blender until you have a lovely, smooth final bar that’s free of dry clods of powder. At this point, adjust the colour of the batter using the cocoa powder or iron oxides until you have a rich, chocolatey colour.
Pour about 1/3 of the batter into a smaller container (I’ve been using these neat funnel pour containers) and blend the titanium dioxide into that portion to create a milk-chocolate coloured batter.
Pour half the dark batter into your mould, smooth it out a bit, and knock the mould on your counter to help settle things down. Top with the milk chocolate layer, and the rest of the dark. Smooth all that down and firmly rap the mould against the counter—if your batter is as thick as mine (see the video), you will have to do this quite a lot.
Hanger swirl time! Watch the video to see how I did this. Basically, make a square U-shape with some wire (I used a gear tie) and drag that through your soap batter while moving it up and down to create swirls throughout your loaf. Repeat the counter wacking after this point as you will have pumped a bunch of air into the batter.
For mica swirls, drizzle the pink mica in castor oil over the top of the soap, and drag a toothpick through it to create pretty swirls. I then scooped up the sides a bit and put a row of dried rosebuds down the middle.
Leave it to saponify for 24 hours before removing it from the mould, slicing, and leaving it to age for at least 3–4 weeks. When slicing, slice from the side so you don’t drag bits of rose buds and mica through the soap.
OOOOoohhhh Marie!! You’ve outdone yourself AGAIN!!! I am DYING to make these RIGHT NOW, and I just happen to have all the ingredients! You’re the BEST!!
Your mould? I love how that’s adjustable depending on how much soap batter you have!! Can you please tell me where you bought it? I might have to break down and buy an actual soap mould. I’ve just been using an elaborate system of repurposed containers that have been working perfectly for me for years! But I’ve always tended to make the same size batch of soap. This could allow me to be more flexible.
Thanks, and have a fabulous day! 🙂
Hey Wendy! My dad made the mould; there are measurements here 🙂 You should definitely make one or find somebody you can bribe to make one for you!
This is so gorgeous! I ordered your book this past weekend and can’t wait until I get it, I love the details and photos that you post with each recipe!
Thank you so much! I hope you love the book when it arrives 😀
Beautiful job! Will the lather be brown? Thanks 🙂
Not at all! I tested it and everything 🙂
Yuuuuuum. I do want to lick the screen, Marie.
I’ve been wanting to make soap lately but didn’t know what to do. I have a tray of beautiful Cameo soap molds that I’m itching to use and think this recipe appropriate.
I’m looking forward to using cocoa butter too, that will be a new one.
Hope you’re enjoying London!
Thanks, Cristie! London was super awesome, I definitely enjoyed it and am rather bummed to be home 😛
So I made it last month and it was ready to use today, Valentine’s day. Or a few days before because I couldn’t wait any longer.
What a soap! I would love to make this my permanent soap recipe but I think it’s a bit more expensive and would eat up all my cocoa butter quick. Darn. So it’s my special occasion soap recipe. Valentine’s day, presidents day, arbor day, Columbus day, daylight savings time. Special occasions!
Rich creamy lather. Smells so yummy. Winner!
Yay! I’m feeling the same way—mine sold out super fast, and I’ve been asked about re-stocking but I think I would have to increase the price ’cause yeah… $$$$ 😛
What!!!! NO animal fat!!!! You GO girl!
Has to happen once a year haha 😛
I love this! I wanted to know if it could be done through hot process instead? Thank you
I wouldn’t recommend it; I had a hard enough time getting swirls and a smooth pour as it is (watch the video to see how thick it gets)—I can’t imagine how awful that would be if you were dealing with a significantly stiffer batter.
Those really do look good enough to eat! Beautiful, Marie!!
Thanks, Belinda!
Hi Marie!
Wohoo! I work at Nite Ize, the company that sells the gear ties. I was so amazed to see you use this in your soap. Brilliant! I love watching all your videos. Huge fan here in Colorado!
That is so cool! I definitely didn’t expect to hear from the creators of Gear Ties when I used ’em for this project 🙂 I have them in a bunch of different sizes for different types of swirls—they are amazing!
I made a Marie inspired chocolate soap yesterday and just cut it today. It’s lovely! Excellent inspiration! Now the hard part. Waiting for the cure.
Exciting! 😀
These look delicious ! I was wondering about the pick mica you swirled on top. If you mixed it with a bit of oil, wouldn’t that stay oily on top?
About to do a few Valentine batches on Monday.(yes, Im cutting it a bit close ! )
Amber
Hi Amber! Mixing it the way Marie did, the soap actually absorbs the wee bit of castor oil and doesn’t alter the end result. If you trickled the mica oil on top and didn’t swirl it a bit, you might get tiny oil pools that move.
Thanks !
It’s such a small amount that it absorbs nicely 🙂 Happy soaping!
Oh Thanks ! Good to know !
Hi Marie!
I was wondering about the cocoa powder option; do you know if it would make the finished soap gritty at all (like cinnamon)? Also regarding colour, I vaugely recall you mentioning that zinc oxide could be used to lighten soaps, simalarly to titanium dioxide – albeit less effectivly. Is that right? I like the visual interest the center layer gives but don’t have titanium dioxide on hand. I was thinking of trying it for the hemp and shea bar and now this recipe has reminded me of it too! Thank you so much for all the wonderfulness you provide, I love your common sense approach.
I don’t find it does—I find cocoa powder to be smoother than cinnamon, and in the amounts we use cocoa powder, it really shouldn’t be a problem (I think you would be staining your towels before you made a gritty soap). And yes, you can use ZO, but it can be gritty, and too much can make the soap crumbly, so be careful and don’t use more to try to make up for its whitening weakness! Happy soaping 🙂
Marie,
How much of the Micas and Oxides did you end up using and how much Castor does one use to disperse it in?
Also, totally unrelated to soap but I would really love it if you could do a shimmer lotion bar like a certain luscious (lol, not sure if we are allowed to mention names) store carries. I love Glitter! 🙂
I honestly don’t know—how much you need will vary hugely on the colour of your cocoa butter, what colour you want in the end, the surface area of your bars, the micas you use—you have no choice but to work slowly and stop when you like the looks of the batter. Just use enough castor oil that you can whisk everything together easily; use as little as possible to get a liquid mixture and not a clump of mica/oxide.
I do have a shimmer lotion! I shall add a body butter bar to the list 🙂
Hi Marie, I made this soap but I just couldn’t wrap my head around rose and chocolate together so I used bitter almond fragrant oil instead…. WoW!! Most amazing soap ever! Smells like cherry chocolate cake!! I added a dark pink layer on top of the cream layer and the swirl came out beautiful. I used cocoa powder for the brown color and had to add some red oxide to get that chocolate brown color. Next I’m making your chocolate lip butter. I’ve got all the ingredients and I’m ready to go. I ordered my cocoa absolute from Edens Garden and it smells delicious.
I also have your book and can’t wait to try out some of the recipes. I really want to make your orange blossoms face cream but I’m going broke buying all these ingredients….. it really looks amazing:)
OOh, wonderful! I’m so glad you are loving it—your variation sounds downright decadent 🙂 And thank you so much for buying my book!
Whenever I buy more ingredients I tell myself this hobby isn’t cheap… it’s cost effective 😛 And fun!
Hi. Just wondering if I could use some rose wax for scent. Maybe melt and add at end with essential oils? Thanks!
I’ve read that you can, though I’ve never wanted to shell out to try it!
These look amazing! I would love to make them but I am not very fond of the percentages. How do I figure out how to make them using the metric measuring system?
http://www.humblebeeandme.com/faqs/use-recipes-written-percents/ 🙂
Hi Marie, I was wondering if these could be used as shampoo bars ?
For sure, just make sure you follow up with an acidic rinse 🙂
My soap batter wasn’t pourable. I blended to light trace and then blended again with the kaolin, cocoa powder and oils – once I thought I’d got all the lumps out, it developed a skin and looked a lot like blancmange – when I stirred, it almost looked like it had separated and was grainy. I had to scrap the lighter layer and just splodge it into the mould! Any idea what went wrong? It also seems to smell very strongly of lye so hope that fades!
That is very odd indeed. Are you certain you scale is accurate? What temperature did you soap at? Are you certain you reached trace? Now that’s it’s been a day, how does it seem?
Hi Marie,
I loved this recipe. I have already ordered the ingredients and waiting for them to arrive. However,I have few doubts :
1) we don’t get brown cocoa butter in India. The one got is white though smells chocolate. What if i replace kaolin clay with cocoa powder? Won’t adding both will make it very thick? If replacing kaolin, how mich cocoa powder do you think it will require to give chocolate color. Do i still need red or brown iron oxide to make it look rich?
2) i have both rose and chocolate fragrance. Can i use the combination?
3) don’t have benzoin.can I omit it?
1) I’d stick with the iron oxides for colour as you’ll need far less of them than the cocoa powder. Add as required to get the colour you want.
2) Yes
3) Yes
Happy soaping!
Hi Marie,
I was wondering if, instead of having rose fragrance scent, would I be able to replace some of the water with rose water? Would there be enough scent to carry through to the final product so it would smell a bit like Turkish delight? Thanks
I’m afraid I don’t know—I horde my rose water for places I know it will shine!
Hi Marie
Lovely soap, delicious!
i wish to reduce the use of cocoa butter here, what would be the minimum percentage? because it is just too pricey 🙂
and which oil should i added more, to replace the percentage of reduced cocoa
You’d need to feed the recipe through Soap Calc and watch the hardness numbers, adjusting the different fats as needed to get the hardness into an acceptable range.
Hi Maria, I made this chocolate/rose soap the other day. It turned out great but I have a little glycerin rivers in the light choc layer that has the TD in it. I was wondering your suggestion how to prevent glycerin rivers? I use a wooden mold like yours and keep soap in room temp temp with towels over mold to insulate. Maybe I shouldn’t insulate? I also made soap around 100 degrees. Thanks Kelley
Hey Kelley! Try a water discount to prevent glycerin rivers 🙂 Auntie Clara has a great blog post on this (that’s where I learned it from)!
Beautiful soap, followed your directions. I used the light cocoa butter so added cocoa powder for the brown color. However I didn’t realize you left your soap uncovered the 1st 24 hours so I covered mine with a towel as usual.
The PROBLEM: had a few air holes that had what looked like the yellow/ olive green of olive oil oozing out when cut. It doesn’t seem to be Lye but will the bars be safe to use?